Viewing Members by Letter doesn't work right

Started by Oldiesmann, March 02, 2004, 01:03:25 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Should the devs fix this themselves or should someone write a mod to fix it?

The devs already work too hard... it's not like this is that big of a deal...
10 (47.6%)
The devs already work too hard... it's not like this is that big of a deal...
6 (28.6%)
Who cares?
5 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 21

Oldiesmann

This is more of an annoyance than a bug. If you go into the memberlist and then click a letter, instead of showing you a page starting with the first member whose name begins with that letter, it shows you the page where the first member whose name begins with that letter appears, even if it's the last username on that page.

Example: Say I want to see all the users whose username starts with "O"...
According to the memberlist, Observer is the first user whose name starts with "O". Instead of Observer being the first one listed, I see the last 18 users whose name starts with "n" and then Observer. In my opinion, this completely kills the reason this feature would be useful.

EDIT: Jeff, in response to your last post, I added a poll... Let's see what everyone else thinks... :)
Michael Eshom
Christian Metal Fans

pulpitfire

it seems to operate as if, instead of doing a new query, it simply re-shuffles the whole deck.  maybe it's to make it faster, and use less rescources.

[Unknown]

Why does this stop it from being useful?  The letters are just "jump to page" buttons.

-[Unknown]

Gobalopper

I think it is somewhat confusing for people starting out since YaBB has always done it the way Oldiesmann mentions. I'm not saying one way is better then the other though. :)

Fizzy

That's a bug / bad design if ever I saw it.

Click on "H" and you get 3 members starting with "H", the rest are all G's
If I had wanted "G" I would have clicked on "G".
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - A.E.


[Unknown]

How is that a bug?  Are phonebooks buggy?

After all, look up "H" in the index, and you'll get a bunch of G's.....

-[Unknown]

Tyris

he's got a point there ;)
maybe we can have two forms of this sorting...? one that limits the ordering to ONLY H's... and one with this phone-book method..?

pulpitfire

just a question here.  when you originally click the memberlist, does it query the entire thing?  if it's currently opperating on a jump-to when you click a sort option, it seems like that would require loading the whole memberlist. 

if so, would it be quicker to simply do a query based on any sort options a user may click?  it might involve more queries, but less data per-query.  maybe in the long run, it might speed it up, use less rescources, and provide more desired information.

Oldiesmann

I really think it's annoying. The current YaBB SE board and the SuperMod board do this just as quickly as the SMF board does for the jump to pages.
Michael Eshom
Christian Metal Fans

Fizzy

Of course it isn't a bug if you see the member list as a phonebook - providing you are happy to select "H" and get 27 G's and 3 H's on it !
In the same way as when selecting track number 7 on a CD and I still have to listed to 4,5 and 6.
Perfectly acceptable.

OK, so don't call it a bug, just call it crap presentation then. Or am I expecting a little too much when I ask for H and get a page full of G's ? ? What's the point in programming a list that in this example only shows you 10% of  the page inforation that is relevant to the users requirements?
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - A.E.


Grudge

Maybe it would be possible to stick an anchor into the start of each letter group so it could scroll down to where each letter starts?
I'm only a half geek really...

Jeff Lewis

Fizzy, relax, you're getting pretty worked up about this :)

I have to agree that I don't like the new way either but I am guessing someone will write a MOD to "fix" this.
Co-Founder of SMF

Oldiesmann

I don't understand why it has to be a mod, but maybe it's just me. I added a poll so other people can have their say without making this thread really long.
Michael Eshom
Christian Metal Fans

Fizzy

Jeff,

Don't worry, I'm far from wound up about it  8)

I'm at work so I tend to think fast and type fast so if it comes across as getting wound up it's not intended that way :D
If somethings not a bug and it gets explained how it's a feature and not a bug then I'm happy with that, but making analogies to suit poor presentation doesn't go down well.

I'm just doing what I can do for SMF, providing feedback where I can :)
A mod would definitely be needed though. Giving user selectable options for the number of records per page would be good too. :)
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - A.E.


[Unknown]

Quote from: pege on March 03, 2004, 08:14:39 AM
just a question here.  when you originally click the memberlist, does it query the entire thing?  if it's currently opperating on a jump-to when you click a sort option, it seems like that would require loading the whole memberlist. 

if so, would it be quicker to simply do a query based on any sort options a user may click?  it might involve more queries, but less data per-query.  maybe in the long run, it might speed it up, use less rescources, and provide more desired information.

No, actually.  It would be slower.  It's faster to have less conditions but limit the amount of data... meaning this is fast:

SELECT *
FROM somewhere
LIMIT 1;

And this is slow:

SELECT *
FROM somewhere
WHERE a = 1 OR b = 4
ORDER BY c
LIMIT 1;

This makes sense, because MySQL has to figure out *what rows* you're looking for, which is very time consuming.

Hey, Fizzy - calm down.  Shall I call you a crap presentation?  Let's not go saying such things.  You don't agree with the feature, and that's fine - but this is not a bug, it's a feature request.

I elected to leave them in, and Compuart took the letter links out entirely.  As a *conselation* I put this in - otherwise they would not be there at all.

-[Unknown]

Jeff Lewis

Quote from: [Unknown] on March 03, 2004, 03:12:49 PM
Hey, Fizzy - calm down.  Shall I call you a crap presentation?  Let's not go saying such things.  You don't agree with the feature, and that's fine - but this is not a bug, it's a feature request.

He already explained that he typed first, thought later :)

And fair enough, with the number of users using SMF we won't be able to please anyone. So far only 33% think the developers should change it.
Co-Founder of SMF

Fizzy

Quote from: [Unknown] on March 03, 2004, 03:12:49 PM
Hey, Fizzy - calm down.  Shall I call you a crap presentation?  Let's not go saying such things.  You don't agree with the feature, and that's fine - but this is not a bug, it's a feature request.
-[Unknown]

Sorry [Unknown],

Poor choice of words on my part. No offence intended 8)
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - A.E.


Oldiesmann

#17
Quote from: Jeff Lewis on March 03, 2004, 05:08:32 PM
And fair enough, with the number of users using SMF we won't be able to please anyone. So far only 33% think the developers should change it.

EDIT:Hmmm... back up to 33% again :)
Michael Eshom
Christian Metal Fans

Advertisement: